Leads, Leads and More Leads

2007-11-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

Mortgage Leads, Insurance leads, Consulting Leads, Real Estate Leads. You name it, if you are in a service business such as a mortgage broker, insurance agent, realtor or consultant; you have probably received e-mail spam or have seen numerous advertisements in trade magazines from companies who claim to have hot leads to potential customers ready to buy.

I too have seen and received many solicitations to purchase leads. When I was an Insurance Agent, I received spam and cold calls on a regular basis trying to get me to sign up for insurance leads. Although I initially resisted, I finally gave in and agreed to sign up to receive insurance leads from a well known insurance lead supplier. They would not sell me exclusive leads and I was charged $9.00 per lead.

It did not take long before I started receiving leads. I felt it was important to call on the lead immediately, not only because I was not receiving the leads exclusively, but also because consumers expect immediate service. I called and left messages on their home phone, cell phone and sent e-mails. I usually waited a day to receive a return call. When the call never came, I would leave messages and e-mails again and typically never was able to reach most of the prospective leads. This soon became a very common pattern with each lead I sold to me from the lead generation company.

After receiving more leads, I did eventually connect with some people. Unfortunately, they were not ready to buy. In fact they seemed a little surprised by my call. After about 15 leads I started to get the feeling that these were not leads that were generated from a consumer inquiring about an insurance quote on a website somewhere. The leads seemed more like the result of a company cold calling and selling the mediocre results to the lead service that I was using.

Nevertheless, 20 leads later and nothing even remotely close to a sale, I decided to cancel the service. This turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I was only 45 days into a 90 day contract and as a result had to continue the lead service until the end of the contract term. However, when I asked them to cancel the service after the 90 day term, they said they could not pre-cancel and that I would have to call back after the remaining 45 days of the term were up and advise them to cancel at that time. Obviously they wanted to make it difficult for me and hoped that I would forget. I did not forget however, and cancelled the service at that time.

I have talked to other service businesses and professionals who have used lead services and none have told me that it is a sure clad way of obtaining new clients. From the feedback I have received, it seems like closing ratios are 5% to 7% at the very most.

The question in my mind is if buying leads is an effective way to generate future clients? I would have to conclude that it once had the potential of being a fantastic way for business to acquire clients. Unfortunately, the current quality of leads being sold have turned what potentially could have been a cost effective method of obtaining clients to potential waste of money for the most part.

I have always felt that there has to be a better way to connect service businesses and professionals with potential clients. As a result, I developed http://www.yourequire.com/ to be an online marketplace for consumers to find service businesses and professionals. Consumers can post a request for service, whether it is looking for a mortgage broker, realtor, attorney, insurance agent or other service business or professional. These service requests are then forwarded to local service business and professional members of the site. Membership to the site is free, and so are the free leads that are distributed to the members from each service request.

It is my hope that service businesses and professionals will use http://www.yourequire.com/ to obtain leads rather then other lead generation sites. Hopefully http://www.yourequire.com/ will make it easier for consumers to shop for various services as well as make it easier and inexpensive for service businesses and professionals to find potential clients. If you are a professional or owner of a service business, I encourage you to join http://www.yourequire.com/. As more and more people use the site, the easier it will become for members to obtain leads and generate possible new clients.

Shopping on-line for a Realtor, Attorney, Mortgage Broker or other Service Professional

2007-10-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

What is the best way to find a good Mortgage Broker these days? How about an Attorney, a Real Estate Agent or an IT Consultant. Many people and business find personal and business service professionals through referrals from friends or business associates. However what works for one person or business does not always work for another.

There are other sources like that big old obsolete yellow mass of bound paper called the yellow pages. Open it up and flip though the countless pages of expensive ads and listings. But how do you determine who to call? Do you choose the big ads, the small ads or do you just call the listings? Businesses pay thousands of dollars for those big ads. The next step is to pick up the phone and spend the next 20 minutes calling the various service businesses you somehow choose to call.
Hopefully you won’t have to make too many calls and will be able to actually get a hold of someone who can give you a price quote and timeline of when they can perform the service.

Shopping for professional services can be a tedious process, especially when trying to find a good price. However, there are easier ways. The internet is now proving to be the best resource for shopping for services. As there are an abundance of web sites that provide comparison shopping opportunities for all types of products, there are finally sites that offer time efficient ways to comparison shop for personal and business services. Using traditional methods to find the right professional with a competitive price can be a frustrating and time consuming task. Using the internet now simplifies the shopping process.

Sites that offer the ability to shop for professional and business services on-line are Buyer Zone, Service Magic, Angies List and YouRequire.com. All of these sites have similarities; however http://www.YouRequire.com has a number features that make shopping for professional and business services much easier. YouRequre.com gives consumers the free opportunity to post a request for the services they need. YouRequire.com will then notify local professional members about the service request, allowing them to provide a competitive quote to the customer for the service required. Consumers can then contact the service professional with the best quote as well as individually invite other professional members to bid on their service request. Also, the forums on YouRequire.com are a nice feature and allow consumers to post general questions for the service professional members. Membership is free to both customers and professionals.
Shopping for services can be a time consuming. Whether you are shopping for price, or just looking for a service professional that will do a good job, sites like http://www.YouRequire.com have really simplified the shopping process for the consumer.

Service Blog

Leads, Leads and More Leads

Shopping on-line for a Realtor, Attorney, Mortgage Broker or other Service Professional